Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, Revisited

Six years after an awkward viral moment at the U.S. Open, the stars' paths collide yet again.

NEW YORK — As the most-hyped-so-far match of the 2025 U.S. Open approaches, you have probably already seen or reread about those famous clips of Naomi Osaka comforting a 15-year-old Coco Gauff on court after their first match here six years ago, encouraging the tearful teen to address the crowd.

But that “touching” moment of “sportsmanship” and “sisterhood”—to use the words from gushing headlines about the scene—was stranger, I think, than it got credit for at the time, and it’s a memory which Gauff admitted to having mixed feelings about when I asked her about it years later.

“Looking back, I was definitely, like, having a panic attack on the court,” Gauff told me.

For more on that moment, and the other chapters in the Osaka-Gauff rivalry that served as benchmarks in their careers, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben